The back of Bishop Angelo’s head fell back against the wall, his eyes looking ceiling-ward, searching. “I’m ashamed of myself,” he said. “I’m afraid I‘ve lost my faith.”
“We all question our faith, Angelo. There isn’t a man here who hasn’t.”
Angelo lifted his hand and the trailing links of chain. “Faith or not, we need to do something to get out of here. Prayer alone will not save us.”
“And what do you expect us to do, Angelo? Tear these chains from the wall, and then take on armed guards?”
Bishop Angelo began to visibly shake. “We just can’t sit here and let them murder us one by one.”
“Then pray, Angelo. Pray for divine intervention.”
“I have. And I’m afraid that His answer is ‘no.’”
“Then find as much comfort you can in your faith. If you cannot do that, then seek it out.”
Angelo let his head fall until his chin touched his chest, his point to help them lost. His faith lost. “Why hasn’t God answered my prayers?”
“Perhaps He has, my friend. Only you don’t know it yet.”
From the darkness came footfalls, and Bishop Angelo saw Team Leader bearing down on them from the stairwell at the end of the hallway with purpose in his stride and his firearm firmly gripped in his hand.
“No,” he whispered gravely. “I don’t think He did.”
After Team Leader parked the cargo truck beneath the trees behind the abandoned building, he entered the building knowing his presence would set off the alarms. Once the rats cleared and gave him a wide berth, Team Leader stood within eyeshot of the cameras until an ID confirmation was made by those manning the monitors on the third floor. Once done, the bolting mechanisms slid free and he entered the stairwell.
Boa, Kodiak and King Snake were on the top landing standing sentinel. Their weapons and bandoliers were festooning across their chests, their manner casual. Sidewinder was at the end of the hallway keeping watch over the bishops with his MP5.
“So how’d it go?” asked Boa.
Team Leader removed his pistol and installed a pneumatically snapped-on silencer that reduced the decibel count of the report to a loud spit. “Our associates appear somewhat worried at the moment,” he finally answered. “And for good reason.”
Boa didn’t question the man further. There was no doubt in his mind that Team Leader was irritated.
Walking with urgency to the row of mattresses, Team Leader stood before the bishops of the Holy See. With his weapon held against his body, he then used it to point out Bishop Angelo. The mouth of the barrel seemed as wide as a viper’s deadly yaw as Angelo cast his eyes away in submission. “Take this one and set him before the camera,” he said.
Boa stared at the bishop who refused to look him in the eyes. After a moment of appraisal, Boa spoke in a tone that held a hint of sarcasm. “I guess you’re the lucky man of the day.”
With Kodiak forcing a struggling bishop to his feet, Angelo shouted nonsensical words of protest and fought a futile battle against a much larger man by rapping his fists against Kodiak’s Kevlar. Without hesitation, Kodiak struck the bishop with a well-placed blow that knocked him senseless, his cries evolving to guttural sounds as the bishop went boneless. To the Force Elite it was strikingly comical to watch. For the bishops, however, they pulled their knees up into acute angles and embraced their legs, each man terrified of his fate.
After removing the manacle from the bishop’s wrist, Kodiak half-dragged, half-carried the semi-conscious man along the hallway.
With the bishop’s head cast forward and his eyes at half-mast, a fine thread of his own spit lengthened with every foot he was dragged toward the killing chamber.
The mere action of rendering the bishop impotent enabled Team Leader to study the four remaining bishops of the Holy See, who remained submissive as Bishop Angelo was led into shadows so deep and profound, there would be no returning, and another mattress would lay empty. At the very moment Angelo was led away, Team Leader studied the bishops and determined that they all possessed faith in an afterlife that promised incalculable peace. But they were also undoubtedly afraid to reach for it due to the only avenue to obtain it, which was by dying.
In a moment of loathing, Team Leader viewed them as hypocrites and cowards. Nevertheless, he would look each man in the eye just before the killing moment to see if any regained the blind faith incumbent upon men of the cloth.
As Kodiak led the bishop down the hallway, Team Leader’s trigger finger began to itch. Not in a physical sense, but in a manner of contained excitement. In a few minutes he was about to write another historical chapter for the cause, using the blood of an innocent man as the ink to chronicle the event that would alter history. This he was sure of.
Leaving his station by the bishops of the Holy See, Team Leader followed Kodiak into darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY
He had been riding his dirt bike for nearly three hours. The rooster tail plumes of sand kicking up from behind his wheels left the area in a constant haze in which the ring of mountains surrounding him were hardly perceptible.
Jo-Jo Michaels, only thirteen, demonstrated skill and dexterity in maneuvering his dirt bike over the rough terrain. He guided his machine through the natural moguls and dips with the ease of someone twice his age and experience. But today in the midst of roiling dust clouds he struck a hidden mound, lost his balance, and tumbled off his bike which settled in an explosion of dust and sand.
After getting to his feet and trying in vain to brush the loose grains from his clothing, the dust began to settle. When it did, Jo-Jo froze with mind-numbing terror when he realized that the makeshift mogul was actually the half-gnawed torso of a man covered with a fine layer of the valley’s dust.
Later that day five more bodies would be found, half-eaten, baked and exposed to the elements for weeks, their carcasses riddled by gunfire and found by scavengers who would leave just enough for CSI to determine their identities.
The ethereal brightness of the Vault, and the antiseptic whiteness of the floor, walls and ceiling, definitely cast something divine about the room. To Shari it seemed as if it was created to resemble the surreal world of the afterlife. But the black tactical outfits of the Vatican Knights provided contrast to the earthbound surroundings, making it less dreamlike, more real, less heavenly.
She was intrigued the moment she had entered the Sacred Hearts Church, and her intrigue was heightened by the wall that when engaged by the play of stones, slid aside to reveal the Vault. Once inside she was fascinated, yet disturbed by the display of weaponry behind the glass casings. Somehow the arsenal seemed blasphemous, the weapons magnificent in design and engineering, but assuredly deadly in intent. And since most were created for a special purpose, Shari couldn’t even begin to conceive some of the principles of their operation. They seemed too fantastic to be functional.
As she stood in awe looking at the arsenal display case, Kimball grabbed her lightly by the back of her arm and escorted her into the computer lab where Leviticus danced his fingers across a keyboard with the speed of a pianist. On the twenty-one inch plasma flat screen, she recognized the dossiers and encrypted code taken from the CD. She immediately forgot the weaponry in the other room.